Architecture, Course Work

Architecture design work produced in the second semester of my MArch at MIT. Given a site on the waterfront of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY being developed for mixed-use by Two Trees and BIG, we were tasked to design our own proposal for the project with the same program, while focusing specifically on the design of a YMCA that will serve neighborhood community.

Description:

4 volumes, each with a unique relationship to the city and the waterfront, are held in tension within a tightly bound translucent skin, activating the interstitial space between these bodies.

Given the Y’s progressive history as an institutional haven for marginalized communities and as a mediator that embraces difference in the city, this proposal for the new YMCA in Williamsburg attempts to confidently acknowledge its identity beyond community gymnasium, in favor of its more impactful potential presence as a center of cultural production. Thus, the dynamism of interstitial space is emphasized. These spaces, whether the blurred moments of entry between the city and the Y, the central atrium, or the floorplates that serve as the connective tissue between the programmed volumes, ever in transition, become performative stage and viewing platform for activity within the Y and the city.

At the same time, the Y positions itself as a beacon of this culture as part of the rapidly developing Brooklyn skyline, from the vantage point of the street and from across the river.

The Y becomes a space that interacts with the city both internally and through its external presence.